As with all of life, change is inevitable with packages. Change is often good - such as for adding new features, supported new technologies, fixing bugs, improving accessibility or performance, improving coding standards, and more. But change can often be hard - such as when one of those "good changes" breaks your site or drops support for a feature you rely on.
Marketpath CMS uses versions and version updates to provide both stability and progress for packages.
The first thing to note about versions is that once a version is activated no assets or dependencies may be added, changed, or removed. In addition to improving stability and predictability there is one major benefit of this form of "permanent copy": If you have a package installation that goes bad you still have the option of switching back to the last version where things worked the way you needed them to.
As long as you remain on the current version your site will continue to function the same as it did before. Thus it is "safer" in a sense to simply install the packages you want and avoid updating packages until you really need to.
When you do decide to update a package, as long as you are doing it manually, you should be able to see all of the changes that the package update will make to your site. This gives you the opportunity to further fine-tune the update (eg: ignoring updated files that you have made modifications to) before committing it to your site.
When performing manual updates, it is often a good idea to review the changelog and documentation of any packages to be updated because they should provide a reasonable picture about what has changed in the latest version of the package.
Do Nothing - When a new version of the package is released Marketpath CMS will not take any action. You will still be able to view the packages installed on the site and manually update them, of course. This is a good option for you if you do not care about package updates at all.
Send A Notification - When a new version of the package is released Marketpath CMS will send an email to the email address(es) configured stating that a new version is available and asking if you would like to install it. If you have multiple sites with the same package installed Marketpath CMS will attempt to send a single combined email for all sites - including both those configured to send a notification and for those configured to automatically update - in order to avoid spamming your inbox. This is a good option for you if you want to know when an update is available but don't want to risk an update breaking your site.
Automatically Update - When a new version of the package is released Marketpath CMS will attempt to automatically install the update for your on your site. Furthermore, if the installation is successful then all objects created or updated by the installation will automatically be published for you. This is the most risky option because updates could break your site, and should be avoided on most public-facing websites unless you have a good reason to use it (eg: a private package containing a snippet shared across multiple related sites). If Marketpath CMS cannot automatically update the package for you then the installation will not be completed and you will be notified by email so that you can complete the installation manually. Some of the reasons why Marketpath CMS might not be able to update the package automatically include conflicted or invalid assets, new required mappings, or an unresolved pending installation for that package.
When a user creates a package, they are required to select a default update method for the package. When that package is installed on new sites without selecting a different value then the default value will be used, and the email address of the user who starts the installation will be used for any notification emails.
You are strongly encouraged to think about how you want package updates to be handled on your site and configure your update methods accordingly. The easiest time to do this is when installing a package, but you may also change it afterwards by:
Please fill out the form below with your feedback or any questions you may have after working through the "How package updates are handled" lesson.